Interactive lesson

Homemade bread, step by step

Interactive lesson: baker's percentages, flour and water, kneading, rising, shaping, baking in the oven and keeping bread.

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The whole lesson as text

1. Baker's percentages

Bakers don't write recipes in cups, but in percentages of the flour.

Everything on the scales — Flour is 100 %, and everything else is counted against the flour. Weigh to 1 g, both the flour and the water.
Water 60–75 % — For 1 kg of flour, 600–750 g of water. Wholemeal flour and rye need more water.
Salt 2 % — For 1 kg of flour, 18–22 g of salt. With less than 1.5 % the bread tastes bland.
Yeast 1–2 % — 10–20 g of fresh yeast per 1 kg of flour, and a third of that for fast-action dried yeast. Less yeast means a longer rise and better flavour.

Why: Everything is counted against flour = 100 %. That way any recipe is easy to scale up or down, and you can see at once whether the dough is soft or stiff.

Put the bowl on the scales, zero it, add the flour, zero it, add the water: 1 mL of water is 1 g.
From 1 kg of flour you get roughly 1.4–1.5 kg of baked bread.

2. Flour and yeast

Every flour drinks a different amount of water.

How much water it drinks — Per 1 kg: strong white flour (bread flour) 600–640 g of water, wholemeal wheat 700–780 g, wholemeal rye 750–850 g.
Start with less water — Begin at the low end of the water range. If the dough is stiff, add 20–30 g.
Yeast or sourdough — With yeast the bread is done in 2–4 hours. Sourdough takes 8–24 hours, but the crust is crisper and the bread keeps for 4–6 days.
Rye wants sourdough — With yeast alone you can go up to 20–30 % rye. Above 50 % rye, sourdough is a must.

Why: Bran and rye absorb more, and old, dry flour more than fresh. You'll get to know your own flour in two or three bakes.

Mix fast-action dried yeast straight into the flour; dissolve fresh yeast in a little water.
Spelt and rye are not gluten-free: people with coeliac disease must not eat them.